


i'll be your number one with a bullet

by Quintessentia



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Gen, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, crank!minho, i don't know why this happened, immune!newt, immune!thomas, no one actually dies in the fic but it's pretty obvious that they're not going to survive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quintessentia/pseuds/Quintessentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Will he die if I die?" Minho asks him, and if he was still all of himself then he wouldn’t have to ask Newt that question and expect him to be able to give an answer without falling apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll be your number one with a bullet

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on a prompt i got on tumblr that went like this  
> 'but imagine crank!minho just losing his grip on himself and reality and he stays with thomas and newt and he shakes all through the night and sometimes he wakes up violent and screaming and forgets who they are but thomas and newt just stay with him and hold him and wonder quietly if it would just be easier for all of them to die together'  
> I freaked out and ran with it.

Minho’s screaming again and Newt wishes his eardrums would just blow out already because being deaf at this point would be a blessing.

Tonight’s been worse than most, and stubbornly he closes his eyes just for a moment and wishes he didn’t ever have to open them again. This is the third time Minho’s woken them up and judging by the way Thomas is struggling to quiet him it’s the second time he’s forgotten their faces. The first time around he’d clocked Thomas so hard across the jaw for trying to shush him that Newt had had to hit him across the back of the head so swiftly it’d almost knocked him out.

Afterwards, Newt had cried himself hoarse and almost punched Thomas a second time for trying to comfort him, but then he’d felt like a major asshole and they’d stayed curled together around Minho’s body as their friend shuddered his way back into sleep.  

"Newt!" Thomas is calling, his voice high and desperate, Newt’s name cracking in the air between them as he yells for help, "Newt, wake up! Help me for shuck’s sake—he’s forgotten us  _again_.”

Thomas’s voice breaks for real over the word ‘ _again’_ , and Newt swallows hard, pushing away his dark thoughts and flipping himself over as quickly as possible, aiming to get his hands on Minho. The other boy is still thrashing wildly and his face is wild, twisted into an expression of animalistic terror and rage and  _god_ , Newt wishes death upon them all with a sudden ferocity that surprises even him. Even when he was freefalling from the edge of the Maze all that time ago, Newt has never craved death as much as he does in this moment.

Minho shakes and screams and Newt and Thomas hold him down, pinning his arms and whispering meaningless platitudes to him through dry lips and the knowledge that Minho most likely won’t make it out of this alive. There are tears dripping from Thomas’s face and he’s always,  _always_  been sensitive, but this is worse, this is  _Minho_. This is the kid who was supposed to be their new leader, who was always ready and waiting with a wisecrack and a ‘tough-luck, kid’ attitude, but who wasn’t afraid to squeeze Thomas’s hand when it got to be too much, or rest his head on Newt’s shoulder when they were both too tired to go on.

Newt has never, ever been this tired before, and now there’s no one to hold their hands or pull them close because Minho is dying and the Flare is taking his memory of them with it before he goes. Newt feels sick as their best friend’s shrieks turn into something more resembling sobs and it feels like his chest is breaking open.

"Minho," Thomas says, saying his name like it’ll make a difference, like it’ll make Minho remember who they are in a sudden flash of blinding light, "Min, please tell me you’re still in there. You gotta still be in there, man. We can’t do this without you—we can’t. We just can’t."

Minho stares up at them with quivering lips and there’s no recognition in his eyes, nothing that proves any of Thomas’s words are registering in his disease-ridden brain. He isn’t struggling anymore but Thomas is still holding him and he’s crumbling like ash in front of them, losing his words to the grief that’s just as surely infected him as it has them all.

"You chose  _us_ , Minho. You didn’t leave, you didn’t run away. You could have left and gone to the Crank Palace and died alone with the rest of them but you chose us.” Newt has to look away at that because he’s a coward and he has been ever since he jumped off that wall and didn’t die. Everything’s just been leading up to this, except now he has to watch the only people he’s got left waste away before he gets his turn to go. That’s the price of surviving, even if you don’t make it all the way to the finish line—someone else always has to die first.

"Why won’t you wake up?" Thomas’s voice is rising in a crescendo now and it’s almost worse than Minho’s screams from earlier, "Why won’t you come back to us? Why won’t you remember us? You’re not supposed to die like this Minho— _you chose us_!”

Thomas moves to slump into the crook of Minho’s neck, where he used to fall asleep all the time back when things were better and Newt still clung to the hope that they might wake up one day and all of this would be gone. For a moment Minho doesn’t move, just stares at the ceiling, silent and spent, empty of anything and everything that made him who he was, that made him  _theirs_. Then his arms wrap tentatively around Thomas’s waist and he turns to look at Newt, and Newt can’t look away.

"Will he die if I die?" Minho asks him, and if he was still all of himself then he wouldn’t have to ask Newt that question and expect him to be able to give an answer without falling apart.

Newt can’t make himself speak, but the certainty of what he knows Thomas will do when Minho dies sticks to the back of his throat and steals his resolve from him like it was never there. Minho’s shadowed profile gets blurry and Newt blinks away the wetness gathering in his eyes, just in time to see the flash of realization settle itself into the contours of Minho’s face.

"Newt," he continues through the sound of Thomas crying into his shirt, and the word sounds funny coming from Minho’s lips, like he knows the feel of it but he doesn’t know why he has it—just that it’s important, "Newt, I think i’m going to die."

"I know," Newt tells him, because he’s a wreck and he probably looks like a Crank himself, "I know you are, Minho." He slides down onto the hard cement floor and presses himself close to the fast crumbling remains of his former life, praying for sleep and hoping selfishly that if one of them doesn’t wake up in the morning, it’s going to be Newt.

He’ll never be that lucky. Newt slips into sleep the way the dead fall into oblivion and dreams of the gun Thomas carries in his belt. He knows for sure that come morning, Minho will be gone and that one of those bullets will have Newt’s name on it.

It’s the most comforting thought he’s had in an age.

**Author's Note:**

> I know there's no shortage of tragic fics in this fandom, but leave me feedback anyways? Even if it's just saying you hate me for making Minho a crank and fucking up Newt and Thomas, come yell at me anyways.  
> If you want to yell at me on tumblr, then i'm at slimitgally.tumblr.com.


End file.
